Frito-Lay’s Shark Tank-ish “Dreamvention” Contest Names 5 Finalists

You dream it, you can do it. It’s advice that millions of parents give their kids, and now PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay Variety Packs division is making it real for dreaming inventors. The Frito-Lay Variety Packs-sponsored Dreamvention contest asks families to invent stuff to make life better — after all, isn’t that how Thomas Edison got started? And families responded, presumably chewing on great ideas while they also munched on flavorful Frito-Lay chips. Frito-Lay selected the five most tantalizing (and do-able) ideas and hired design firm MAKO Designs + Invent to turn them into real working prototypes.

Now the top five (viewable below) will be voted on by people who can really use these new inventions — sorry, Dreamventions! — to make daily life a little bit easier. The Dreamvention contest has a real Shark Tank feel, with inventors tackling everyday problems and trying to turn their solutions into reality. Take Connecticut mom Jill White who worries when she’s cooking that her daughters Audrey and Mia, ages 5 and 7, may stroll a little to close to the stove. Voila! How about a sensor that sounds an alarm that mom can put on when she walks away from the wok for a minute? Yup, the Kid Safe Switch is one of the Dreamventions. The Dreamvention Family Finalists are below: